Gods, Guides, and Worlds Between

So Ioun stops and looks at us. Ioun says that she is going to, with Ri, Arafel, and myself, begin the process of linking every mind together so that nothing is ever forgotten and everything is known by everyone.

She starts chanting some incantation, and I just stand there, at a loss for any action. However, I notice the air in front of Bricer/Ioun begins to shimmer. Then comes a ripping sound, and then we are all swallowed by a blackness, and we can see Ioun outside of the blackness. She looks a little taken aback, but she turns and walks away…

I have no IDEA how long I’ve been here….
Ri looks a little unhealthy…
I hate Rionell…
Getting bored…
Sleepy…

I’ve woken up in a very dark place. All the buildings around are made of stone. More like cave walls, hewn into building shapes. There are a lot of what looks like peasants standing around us. Rionell, Bladepwn, and Ridoh are here. They are unconscious. DW, Arafel, and I are all standing and looking around, along with a little crazy looking gnome. He introduces himself as Tim.

The peasants scatter.

They come back with sharp, pointy things. Pitchforks and things of the like. Then through the mob they lead a couple of people. A male and a female, and they look like zombies. The man’s arm has large chunks of flesh missing from it, and one may see the bone.

The gnome proceeds to inform them that we all have no idea how we got here. He says he was experimenting with some magic, exploded himself, and wound up here. I inform them how we got here, about Ioun and everything. The male says that he doesn’t know much about Ioun, although they’ve heard her name before.

There is a glowing ring of rocks next to the man and woman. Tim informs us that it is a portal ring, though it only comes here and nowhere else.

The peasants tell me that our three unconscious “companions” have bad internal bleeding, and will not last very long. At that moment, a man runs into “town” and starts shouting that another outpost has been taken back from the darkness. He also says that they brought back some herbs and whatnot for medicinal purposes.

The female turns to us and says that if we wish to save our friends, we would need to travel to that settlement and retrieve the herbs they need to heal them. We agree to attempt the journey.

They tell us the directions to go, and we proceed to head in that direction. We travel no more than a couple of hours when out of the ground, separating DW and Tim from Arafel and I, rocks spout out of the ground and form walls on all sides.

Arafel and I proceed to engage our foes. Our enemies seem to be made of complete shadow, with but a little form. They begin to move in and attack. I take a good little whack, but at the same time, I am able to see that one of them look astoundingly similar to Dark Wing, and I yell to Arafel that we are fighting Tim and Dark Wing.

One of the shadows move in closer to us, and jumps high into the air. We are all three pushed backwards from the force of the blast. The walls disappear. However, the shadow that had jumped had apparently been Tim, and he was now about 70 feet in the air. DW managed to catch him and no harm came to him. Dark Wing told us that a light lay in a certain direction. We go that way.

After a time, we run into a strange woman searching for something in vain upon the ground. She says, “I’ve lost my amulet. Where could it be?!?” She sees us and begs us to help her find it. She and I see something move at roughly the same moment. I leap towards the moving object, but it evades my grasp, but not the woman’s. She stuffs what looks like a giant cat thing into her pouch, and turns and looks behind her. She says that they are coming out of the darkness and we should run.

Tim fires a blast of cold something at the woman, and she is frozen in place. I proceed to steal the bag from her. The “amulet” attempts to escape, but I am able to restrain it. I hand it to Tim, who proceeds to stuff it in his bag of holding. I then scavenge the ground to collect the remainder of the “jewels” that were in her bag.

A huge crowd of people come rushing upon us and are making their way past us. Some of them stop to help the dazed woman up, and are saying things like “Lilith, what happened?” Lilith tells them about Tim hitting her with the cold blast. Tim tries to worm our way out of it, and in the end, they decide to take us with them so that they could punish us, instead of leaving us to the darkness…........

I inform the rest of the party of my vision and we decide to think about it…

We patch up Naren, and Arafel convinces us to head out in the night. We get to Tybernickle early in the morning, and DW, Bladepwn, and Ridoh all decide to go and find help for the battle that will most likely be coming. Its almost exactly as we remembered, except that its earlier. Rionell, being the showoff that he is, decides to teleport across the moat instead of walking across the bridge. Arafel, having not been with us before, simply walks across.

Then there’s just me left. I don’t see the need in talking my way though it, since its just me, so I sneak across…

They didn’t even feel the breeze.

We make our way into the city, and neither Holic nor Lucian are anywhere to be seen. I do, however see two figures that look like them, in robes, and I proceed to follow them.

It was two women…

So I buy an apple and proceed to where Bricer was supposed to be. He was where he was supposed to be, I suppose waiting on Ioun’s Godstone. Rionell and Arafel catch up with me and we decide that the best course of action is for me to sneak around the paladin’s and over the bridge…

“Assassin!!!”

O how I HATE, LOATHE, DETEST, Rionell, even though it was to a good end, he could’ve told me…

O yes…

As I was sneaking, Ri yells out assassin…so all the paladin’s look at me and decide to neutralize me. I turn and bolt. Ri is running towards me, and I try to get past him. He tosses me back to the paladins, who proceed to dogpile me. Rionell jumps on the back of the dogpile, into the air, and teleports right next to Pontiff Bricer, with his sword at his throat.

Ri proceeds to tell Bricer that he is in danger, and about my vision. I am hauled up to the center with Bricer and Ri, and Arafel is called and joins our parley. I then inform Bricer of all the parts of the vision that include himself. He commands me to take a group of paladin’s and search for Holic. He sends another two battalions to guard his stone.

I set off with my paladin escort, and we ave a rather uneventful few hours. After a while, however, I see Holic and Lucian, and I inform the paladins of their presence. A couple of the paladins stop the two men, and begin speaking with them. After a moment, they begin raising there voices, and then they are thrown backwards with such force that they must have been killed. The rest of my escort charged forward, whilst I myself turned tail and ran, checking on one of the fallen paladins first, and he was still alive.

I returned to PB to inform him of what had happened, and he sends his entire paladin army forward after Holic.

PB’s stone has arrived, and I see him doing some sort of ritual.

All of the paladins that had surged forward, all 9139856139 of them, are thrown every which direction. Holic walks slowly forward, laughing and waving his arms.

Rionell attacks his brother. Lucian puts up no resistance.

Holic begins to raise his arms, but I throw a shuriken at him, which misses. Rionell becomes very still.

He teleports behind Holic and whacks him. Holic winces, but continues smiling. I run towards Holic, pull out my dagger, and prepare to knock him about.

I swing…he moves…

And Laughs…

I become so angry, that I can’t even see straight.

Holic says aloud, “O my, you two have set me back quite abit, but no matter.” He waves his hands, and Lucian pulls out a vial of powder and begins doing the same thing that PB was doing, only much faster.

Ri runs towards Lucian and knocks him away. I swing wildly at Holic.

Holic runs over to one side, as he sees PB, who is now Ioun, coming towards him. “This will not be the last you two see of me, and Rionell, I will kill you personally.” Lucian proceeds to cut his own throat, at a wave of Holic’s hand, and Holic himself disappears.

Sorry I’ve missed my last few entries, but we’ve been a little busy, and I’m lucky to have the time to do it now…

O my gosh, things have been crazy…to say the least.

So we leave Brandeld to go back to the town the puppet man destroyed (HT).

We went into the woods to get off the roads, just in case, but in the night, DW and I decided to have a look around, and see what we could see. We discovered a Gelatenous(sp) Cube in the forest, and followed it for a way.

Naren burst from the trees, and fell over. I ran to him and helped him up, and then there was this large banana looking monster, and it picked up the Cube and threw it through the air, and continued pursuing ourselves. DW and I along with Naren proceeded to high tail it back to camp.

At camp our group quickly dispatched the Grick, as its called, and I tended to Naren, and as I was doing so, he leaned in close and laid his hand on my chest…

We woke up the next morning, patched up Naren, and went on our way. Rionell, Bladepwn, Airafel, and Ridoh all maintain that we should head for Tybernickle, as that is the most likely place the puppet man was headed, as this is the day of the great festival of some deity or another.

We made it to Tybernickle uneventfully, but once there it was extremely crowded. There were many guards on the bridges guarding Tybernickle, and as our last trip into the city ended in near disaster, I wasn’t too sure the guards were gonna like us.

I was right, but luckily for us I managed to talk our way onto the bridge and over it without incident. Once in town, we noticed a pair of figures moving suspiciously. We asked them to turn, and it was Holic and Lucian, Rionell’s younger brother. Holic and Rionell have a slight discussion, and Holic tells Ri that his “job” is on the other side of town. Ri mouths to me to follow Holic, and DW accompanies me, as the rest of the party accompanies Ri.

DW and I follow Holic for a way, and then we see this sea of shining, glistening, Paladins. Joy of Joys, I know…

There is a man in the middle of them not in armor, who is reciting something, and Holic screams out “Bricer!!!, its been a long time.”

Then Holic starts saying a few well chosen words, and Lucian begins to get stiff…

Lucian then says, in not quite as deep a voice, but still booming, “I think not Ioun, for the dead will get what they deserve.” (again…)

Ioun: “Raven Queen, begone, this is no place for one such as you.” Bricer begins to float in the air

DW and I try to hide

RQ: “The dead will rise…” Lucian begins to float

BLACK…

I wake up, and DW is starting to run away. I look around to see Bricer fall to the ground, and Lucian is breathing heavily, but standing. Holic walks out of a building completely unperturbed, giggling even. The Raven Queen turns and says, “Now I shall rule the living,” and Holic says, “I think not my dear Raven Queen, for you forget…” Lucian’s hand slowly pulls his sword out of its hilt, and his face is contorted in rage as he slices his own throat with it.

Holic skips over to where Bricer lays, and begins to shout “You see this Pontiff Bricer, all this is your doing. How does it feel to be put down by one of your own creations?!!” He pulled a dagger out from his cloak, and sank it into Bricer’s chest…

BLACK

Naren is looking at me, and whispers, “Now you know what you must do…”

Now we’ve come to a similar room in which we met Naran the old elf. It has a large bell in the middle of it. I tell the others to follow and walk up to the bell and strike it three times as the old man instructed. The bell begins to move upward, and under where it was is a large stone…Presumably a God Stone. I take it and put it in my bag of holding. So now we’ve got the stones to tackle anything…
We began to move again, and we started to hear scuttling and voices, gruff, rough voices. I decided that I would sneak ahead and see what the noise was, and I discovered about 8 orcs in a small room. We decided to let Saladir have the first move, and he made some of the floor turn to ice, and two of the orcs fell on their faces. I threw a shuriken, and DW used his dragonborn breath. Ridoh and Bladepwn ran into the room and attacked two orcs. Rionell just walked in and readied himself. Irregardless of what happened afterwards, they were dispatched easily and we began to move again.
We finally got to the room with the pool in it, and I took the lead again. As I made my way across the room to the pool, the statues on the walls and at the opposite door began to move…And they are freaking huge. I yell at the others to run to the pool, and then turn and say the word LAMARIAH at the pool. I see a smoldering village. I open the scroll after the rest of them get to me and began to recite the ritual and then I feel a tug behind my belly button.
We are all standing in the smoldering village that I saw in the water. There is an old man standing near us. We ask the old man where we are and what happened. We were in the village of Hairamal. There was a man who could set things on fire with his hands that had come through the village looking for a stone that he called the Hope Stone. He told us that there was a village to the north named Brandeld, that there we could find this stone.
Right about this time, a group of knights ride into the village. We all notice Colwyn, wearing golden armor. We can’t really tell if he notices us, but we think he did. I also see Numonir Salmilin, my old master…in Lyrican Armor…I ask him why he is dressed in the armor, and he tells me he found his way.
I can’t help but to just walk away, shocked and in tears, but having to move on. We start on the way to Brandeld to recover what sounded like a God Stone. Colwyn calls out to Saladir, and Sally tells us to move on that he would catch up. When he finally does, he tells us that Colwyn wants us to meet him near Brandeld later on in the night. Time to sleep for us all.
Once we awake, it’s time to get moving towards Brandeld. We get there and see silhouettes moving about in town. The town is “protected” by a five foot wall. I tell the group that I will sneak in and scope out the town. I sneak in and discover that the silhouettes are actually shades. With big claws. I make it to the main building in the town, and look into the window. I see small figures. I make my way back to the group, almost being seen by the shades, and inform them of what I saw.
Colwyn met us briefly afterwords, and we talked with him for a few moments before we decided to go into the village to make our way to the main building. We got there, and then the shades started to descend upon us, when the door was swung open and we were rushed inside. There were two dwarves inside. They informed us about the history of this town. We all notice a gladius in a glass case on the wall and ask about it. The dwarves tell us that it is an ancient weapon that has been in the town as long as memory. It can drive away the shades. We ask them if they’ve seen the two boys that took the stone from the other town. Yes, but they are in another shack.
Rionell decides to teleport there, and he is gone in a second and running through the town. We all wait until he reappears in the room and hands me the stone.
There comes a commotion, and we see three people running through the town, tearing down shacks, and they break one of them. A dragonborn, an elf, and a human female. We run outside to help them as the shades bear down on them. The dragonborn turns and runs at Ridoh, who smacks the freaking crap out of her, apparantly. The human falls over, and the elf does the same. I run around the buildings to get to the woman’s body, and ransack her lifeless form of all the things on her person. A golden crown, a bunch of ritual components and some spell books. I then find that I am trapped by the shades….......
I managed to get out of that predicament…with a minor scratch…but nonetheless…
I get back inside, after finishing off one shade, and BP comes in with me. From the window I can see Rionell jumping out of a tree in the middle of the path and teleport back into it, causing three shades to evaporate. I then open the door and swipe at a shade standing in front of it. They can’t go through wood it seems, so this strategy is working…I open the door again and finish that shade off.
When I first walked into the building, I noticed that the back wall was gone and so was the gladius on the wall. I had to push the table in the middle against the back wall to keep the shade’s from entering the back of the building.
Once we all got back inside, Rionell yelled at me for running around like an idiot, but complimented me on my survival. I handed him the components and went to search the Elves’ body. He was also dead and also had a golden crown…now that I think about it, the dragonborn did, too. The elf had some longswords and daggers on him, but nothing of real interest…
I guess its time to rest now…after that kind of battle, I assume that we should.
Maybe next time it’ll be a little less weird…but I highly doubt it…

We are taking a break and I noticed that Ri looks a little uhealthy, but don’t say anything about it. We proceed to the next room and we meet a very old looking Elf who says his name is Naran. He makes us all swear not to tell anyone else what he is about to tell us…except Rionell, who had to walk out of the room, while we were told the following:
There were made, a very long time ago, a number of stones, of which Vecna himself knew about. They were called the God Stones, and were said that normal men could harness the powers of Gods. He then informed us that there were armored men that came in here earlier and they retrieved the stone that was hidden under the bell in the middle of this room. I asked him if he told them anything. He responded by saying yes, but that none of it was the truth. He said that he told them that what they sought was to the north, and told us that what we sought was to the south. He showed us the way we should go and informed us of traps that he knew of along the way. He then handed me a scroll and wrote a word in the dust at our feet. The word was “LAMARIAH” and he said that once we got to the final room, that we would see a pool. If I were to say that word while looking into the pool, I would see something, and then I would activate the ritual on the scroll, teleporting the party to the destination that it revealed.
We thanked the old man and started out of the room where we met Rionell. I told him what I could of the old man’s tale without giving away anything vital, for fear of the retribution of the God who is buried here.
We then started on the way that Naran told us to go, and I was in the lead so that I could look for traps. The first thing we came to on our chosen path was a cave in…how incredible. Bladepwn wasted no time in noticing where there were some rocks that we could move to clear a path, and Rionell told us that if we were to move them, that the larger rocks would hold up the smaller ones. This theory proved to be true, as the larger members of our group began to pull the smaller rocks out of the way, and made it without trouble to the other side, as did I. However, DW was a little too large to get through there, so Ri had to teleport him through, but in the end, we all made it.
The next room we came to of any import, was a large room with an archway where we were and one about fifty feet to the right. I began to sneak into the room, whilst Rionell teleported to the other archway. Once he got there, he noticed through his gemstone of true seeing that there were gears there that would, presumably lower a portcullis. At precisely that moment, a great number of things happened in quick succession.
A portcullis began to close where our party was, at the archway we originally came to. DW, Ridoh, and Bladepwn all three began to hold it up so that they wouldn’t be shut out of the room. The floor where I was standing started to become…rubbery? That is the best word I have to describe it. A gigantic Top started to spin from the corner of the room, and it was spinning slowly towards me… Rionell noticed and shouted that he was going to teleport me to where he was, and that I was to disarm the trap. I found myself in a dark void, and then standing where he was just a second ago. I saw no trap. He yelled “CATCH!!!!” Then in my hand was the Gemstone of True Seeing. I then put it to my eye and saw the mechanisms that he spoke of. I reached my had in there and disabled the trap and turned around. I saw Rionell shielding himself from the blade wielding top. The top began to slow, the portcullis began to rise, and the floor began to stabilize. We then took another break. I’ll write more as it happens.

I hope someone else is reading this so they can enjoy this insanity as well as I am…
So I’ve met a pair of travelers, one with long sword, and the other wielding two long swords, and their names are Ridoh and Bladpwn(isn’t that strange), respectively. Saladir and DW have gone off to find Rionell…his blade is useful…but his tactics and strategem are so much better…
We three make our way to the catacombs of Vecna’s Tomb…there is a little obstacle in the entrance…which Ridoh was able to throw me up and I was able to grab onto the lever to open the concealed door…sounds like fun…
We get into the catacombs, and there is a door to our right, which we open, with some effort, and find a skeleton lying in the room, whom we discover was a legendary adventurer. There was a lovely Emerald ring on his finger which I take.
We continue to move through the catacombs, when we come around a corner where we encounter a pair of goblins…they scream when they see us (a battlecry? or fear?) and a horde of rats come running out. Ridoh swings his blade and the horde of rats fall over…I run in and my dagger finds one goblin’s throat, Ridoh’s blade sinks into a larger rat’s side, and BP’s swords lops off the other goblin’s head.
By this time the others have joined us, and to my surprise, Rionell has changed somewhat. He can now sense magic, and he uses a longsword instead of a dagger. He hands me a duelist dagger, and I thank him. I hand Rionell the Emerald ring…maybe he can use it to effectiveness…
We move on through the catacombs and we find a small room with an abandoned well, with some nice things in it. Saladir and Rionell then inform us that they are feeling a tug somewhere in the catacombs…actually, they say three somewheres.
Two to the east, and one to the SSE.
We all decide to go to the one closest to us, however, there is a large gaping hole in the floor on the way there. However, Rionell uses his Gem of True Seeing (which he found in the well room) and discovered there was a way across the gorge. He led us all along the path that he had seen with his Gem, and we made it to the other side. Dagger dodged…
We find a room with a tree in the middle and some “cliffs” on the far walls. We all proceed to walk in, and the tree begins to glow…this cannot be good…
There are two skeletons near us, two far away, what looks like a wight, and some kind of fish looking thing…I guess…let the battle begin…
I run behind the nearest rock and hide myself, then step out and throw a shuriken at the big fish guy, strike him, and get back behind the rock. The others move about according to Ri’s tactics…The two near skeletons eventually fell, but we were starting to wear out…Rionell says to me that he is going to use the ring and that I should move out of the way, which I do…Rionell says a few arcane words, and I see him begin to radiate energy. He then runs up to a few enemies, and teleports on top of the rock that I was hiding behind. What happened next was amazing. There was a BOOM!, and a shockwave radiated outward from where he teleported, and I could tell he damaged everything around where he was. He notices from the top of his rock that the tree looks like it is supported our foes, and shouts to DW to go and destroy it. Dark Wing then runs up to the tree and chops it down…The foes disappear…thank the Gods.

Well, as I left it last time, we were leaving the Halls of Truth and were magically teleported to Tetrea, which is the Kingdom of the Cloud People. (Tetreans?) The king of Tetrea, Brightstar, who apparently is Eve’s father, welcomed us into his abode. He showed us around the castle in the sky, and we were all fed and rested. The next day he summoned us to his throne room. He had a special request for us. His advisor, Orion Starstream, left to investigate some smuggling thingy. He hadn’t been heard from for some time. So, naturally, ask the adventurers to go find him…whoo hoo…
So we are teleported to his closest whereabouts. Lo and behold, he is running from a freaking dragon…WTF…Time to leave.
So my goody too shoes adventuring buddies wanted me to fight the stupid dragon, and then Eve teleported us back to Tetrea. Thank the Gods that we didn’t have to finish fighting that gay dragon.

So after we got Orion face back to Tetrea place, they told us to “Go to this monastery thing and see if they can help him cause we surely cannot.”
OMFG…
Eve had to stay behind, and once we landed back on sweet solid ground, Lucian and Rionell had to leave on business of their order(Thank you Gods)
We (Myself, the wizard, and the warrior) find the monastery, and leave his butt there.
(2 months later) They call us (Myself, Saladir, and Warrior-boy) up and say “We have cured all his physical ailments, however, there is no way that we can cure his psychological wounds. There are certain artifacts that have been known to cure such wounds however. And we know of one in a cave…”
SO…we must go find an artifact to do the job for them, cause they suck.
We get to the cave, and find that it was more like a mineshaft. We go in and to the left, discover some sarchophigi, and a stairwell down through the one in the middle (2 on the walls). We proceed down the stairwell, and see a big open area, lit by torches…but no way to get there…unless we go back…
SOO…we go back, and take the other direction that was available to us in the opening of the cave. That way takes us to the very large open area that we saw from on high. We find a room to the right, a little way into our trek, and proceed to explore. There is a chair that has been moved out of the way of a passage in the center of the room. I proceed to explore into the hallway hidden behind it. I meet a little Kobold “King,” I guess…I proceed to PWND the little kobold king guy thing. I then swaggerjack all of the jewels on his person and in his little throney thingy he was sitting in.
I run back to the other room, when I hear a terrifyingly funny sound. Kobolds running away in terror. Apparently, Saladir and the Warrior-guy, destroyed about 10 kobolds…
We make our way back to the sarcophogus room, and find a small chest in there almost buried in the dirt floor…I open in and see a music box. I open the box…Someone closed the box…I don’t know what happened inbetween. We all recognize this box as what the cleric monk suck guys needed for the dude man… so we take it to them.
He should be awake in a week, come back then…
Oh Boy…I can’t wait…

Man, what a weird past few day this has been.
At least we got out of the Tomb of Vecna in one piece, after Rionell finished off the Kobold leader in magnificent fashion. We descovered a treasure room off the hall, and we found some gold, and many other valuable things. I myself procured a lovely painting, and some rather nice Bloodcut armor. I also found a pact dagger among the treasures, though they are used moreover for Warlocks, I still find its keen edge to my liking.
Anyways, so we ended up tying up the Kobold that Rionell (Albeit he finished it in one stroke, he didn’t have the fortitude to finish the filthy thing apparantly) knocked unconcious. His brother Lucian dragged him back into the town of Tybernickle. Before we even escaped the Tomb, however, we met another Dragonborn, this one a fighter. He decided to follow us, for he was running from the large Gelatinous Cube in the Tomb. From there, we sought the Baron Fuller, and he was different than he was the first time we met him.
He seemed almost shocked that we had returned at all. Rionell, Lucian, & I were all standing at the front of the party, whilst Eve and Jeremiah were way away. Our Dragonborn friend was far enough away to still see everything, but he was being cautious. Saladir and Alix hung around near the middle.
Then comes Tulena, the sister of the one infected with Thri. She comes running and screaming at the Baron, “Where is Colwyn, what have you done with my brother.” The Baron was obviously affronted by this and ordered his guard to remove her from his presence. She, however turned and ran, and Eve followed, along with Saladir. Then the mentally deficient Warlock stands and starts babbling on about how he is going to curse the Baron and all his line and some other nonsense.
The Baron, whom is visibly shaken and angry, then orders the guards on us. We, being not unintelligent, decide the time to fight the Order is not now. We turn and haul ass after Eve and Saladir.
We all make it safely to Tulena’s abode, where she informs us of the whereabouts, or at least his last known whereabouts. He was last seen on a cart heading towards the Halls of Truth, which is the strongest stronghold of the Lyrican Order in or around Tybernickle. She also hands Lucian and Rionell a scroll and shows them a gold coin, and they all nod to one another. I have misgivings about this, and it makes me uneasy, but in time, all will more than likely reveal itself.
We end up making our way to the Halls of Truth, after walking the village and talking with the townsfolk to see what we could learn about it. We go during the day as to look inconspicuous. We are let inside and there are these strange, what look like glowing crystals, that, according to Eve, are not supposed to glow like that. They were found in her howeworld of Tetrea. We moved around and listened to the crowd once more, and discovered that prisoners had been taken to the upper story.
So we move to go up the stairs, however they are blocked by some rather formidable looking guards. Eve uses her diplomacy to discover that there is an interigator on the way to question the prisoners. Rionell then makes them think that he is the interigator. Lucian finishes the job by scaring them so badly that they wet themselves and move out of the way.
We head upstairs and begin to search for Colwyn. Saladir and Eve however, take a different path and look for his fioncee, Briana, who was also on the cart to the Halls with Colwyn. We find Colwyn in one of the rooms upstairs, and Rionell used the “fact” that he was the interigator to get them to leave. Briana was also in this room, and she was highly dead. They took her body as they left.
We discovered much from Colwyn. The light from the crystals made him want to be in the Order so much, and that was their evil power. We decided that we were to extract him to a much safer environment and question he and his sister together. Saladir (who had returned around the same time as they “escorted” Briana out of the room) used his powerful magic to make it appear as if blood was covering Colwyn, and he was bound and our dragonborn friend shouldered him and we prepared to escort ourselves out.
Once out the door, Rionell was stopped by a man in a hood and cloak, who asked him who he was. When Rionell informed him that he was the inquisitor, the cloaked man ordered the guards around him to attack us. Eve then stepped foward and did some of the most powerful magic I have ever seen. She threw some dust from inside her pouch onto the ground, and everywhere around it, was Darkness. I immediatly grabbed onto her robes, as did our Dragonborn friend. She led us to safety out of the cloud the other way. Saladir and Rionell, with Lucian, managed to escape behind us by wall hugging. There were more guards on the other side of the darkness away from the ones we were fleeing. However Eve and Saladir managed to talk them into running into the darkness to help the other guards, whom had advanced on poor Jeremiah, who had not been fortunate enough to escape the darkness. I then heard terrible screams of agony and the sound of metal against metal as we made our way out of the hall and back to Tulena’s dwelling.
My wrist is hurting and I apoligize, but I shall enter the rest of our quest up to the point we are at another time.

Episode 2

=== Report 2: To a Tomb/Temple of Vecna ( )===

I apologize for the blood stains on this parchment; however I'm afraid it couldn't quite be helped. I still haven't quite cleaned off the parts from the last kobold I eviscerated, but I'll get to that in a moment.

As I last reported I was able to acquire a team of adventurers to help Lucian and myself take care of our job. In addition to Jeremiah and Eve, I found two more I was interested in. Saladir, a wizard, seemed to join more for the sake of Eve – it appears they knew each other, or someone in common at least – and has a vengeful look in his eyes. Similarly, he looks human (save his golden eyes) but just like Eve, he doesn't quite act human-ish. I'm certain there is more to this, and I'm determined to find out. I also came across a cleric named Alix, to whom I was very excited to have join us. To put this simply, I know he has a past, and they he is seeking penance for some act. His fighting style, however, is barbaric… A blind rage of sorts. He is quite a formidable ally indeed. I'm afraid I must report one nuisance however. A Halfling named Shay (or something similar, not that it matters) seemed to be partied with Alix. His eyes are devious, and I don't trust him. Or like him, in fact, all six of my senses are repulsed by his existence. He has claimed to oppose the Order (foolish talking indeed) yet his very presence with me and in this place is only furthering the Order's goals.

Mission wise there isn't too much to add.

I discovered a trail of the Thri infested man that we followed back to a located tomb/temple of Vecna. It of course appeared to be mostly abandoned by followers; however the catacombs and tunnels beneath were infested by annoying kobold. Pushing deeper in we came across one attempting to escape through a teleportation ritual. We captured him, and then quickly followed where he was going. There we found a large group of kobolds. The party was able to easily hold them all off. Once I targeted one who appeared their leader, my blades found just the right spots to make him bleed. However I seemed to overdo it, hence the excess stains remaining on this parchment (again my apologies). After this, the remaining kobolds retreated as those cowardly creatures always do. I’m certain they are not far and only plotting against us but no fear.

I must also add that it appears that this kobold was quite possibly the source of the thri. From what little I understand of the wretched disease anyhow. If we come across any other infected, or carrier we will take care of them quickly. Currently we are rested from out last bought, and it appears the rest are finally ready to continue on.

Coming from my Halfling homeland, I met a Cleric named Alix on the road to Tybernicle. He seems an alright sort, albeit he is always drunk… My name is Shaes Dynrund, called the Paladin Slayer by the Halflings in my village. I am going to Tybernickle to seek my fortune. Alix decides to go into a local bar for a tasty beverage, and I follow, for there seems to have been a commotion earlier and I wish to investigate. We get inside and find a dead man and a heck of a lot of dead rats, all cleaved with a sword, or something similar. A couple seem to have been scorched by magic. Alix proceeds to look for the barkeep, and sees no one. I am investigating the dead man when he opens his eyes… Alix and I then proceed to enter a confrontation with this "dead" man, and he summons three rats to his aid. Alix easily dispatches all the foes, and after we finish, the Order guards in this town come back to the bar to inform us that we are to proceed to the keep to confirm that we do not have some disease, Thri. We proceed to the keep, I myself am not happy about this. However, I cannot fight 12 of the Lycirian guards single handed. We are now at the keep, and we are cleared of Thri. We are being informed that the Baron Fuller is summoning us to his meeting chambers…

The Baron Fuller…. Alix and I meet with the Baron Fuller, however we are not alone. There are two Elven brothers, Rionell the rogue, and Lucian the fighter. There is also a warlock named Jeremiah, and a lady that looks human, though I'm not certain, and her name is Eve. She looks to be a bard. Those four seem as if they know one another, but there is one more standing off by himself. He is a wizard, also humonoid, but not really human, and his name is Saladir. Now the Baron wishes for us to accept a "grievious task." He says that he wishes us to dispose of the Thri disease. He invites us to search his town and gather information, and we all meet and greet, and proceed to do so. Rionell suggest we head back to the bar where we faught the rats, and everyone agrees. We get there and proceed to ask about the dead man. We learn that he has a sister living in town, and begin making our way to her abode. She then informs us, through Eve's diplomacy, that her brother went off to the Tomb of Vecna 3 days before we arrived. He then returned the next night, babbling about something, and set off in the direction of the temple again. He returned again the next day muttering to himself and acting ludicrous. That was about the time we met him, she informs us. "Which way is the Tomb of Vecna?" "That way" The sister points in that direction and we begin to head in that direction, seven adventurers on the road to glory…............